There's Nuttin' Like Mutton

If you are a lamb (meat) lover, then this is for you. If you are a PETA activist or care about animals in any way, you may want to skip this post.

I love animals, and yes, I eat meat - mostly chicken, beef not too much of and lamb, I think they ought to ban the slaughter of sheep.

Every Eid (meaning festival) it is a ritual similar to Greeks where each family will go to a farm, pick out a sheep and slaughter it, giving one third to the poor, one third to the family, and keeping one third for themselves. Well, we finally got around to slaughtering our first sheep.

Hassan is not religious in the least bit, actually he believes religion has its place but no one religion should be forced on to people -- I kind of agree with him on this point, but not to his extreme.

We went to the "farm" (military base where the farmer draftees raise sheep), picked out our sheep and kept it in the basement of Aunt Olfat's apartment for two days until this morning. Being the first day of the Eid holiday we went to Aunt Olfat's and waited for our sheep to be slaughtered. It wasn't too bad, I've seen worse things on television, but the hard part for me was having to eat lamb soup, lamb rice and lamb lamb lamb. I couldn't watch anyone else eat much less look at the food on my plate. Luckily the day ended and we came home.

Now we have one whole lamb in Aunt Olfat's freezer along with three other poor le moutons.

Everytime we go to someone's house for a lamb festival (which luckily has only been twice in 9 months), I think of two things: Jerry Seinfeld in the mutton episode where he would spit out the mutton into blue fabric napkins and then have dogs chase him down the street; and, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Only my episode would be My Big Fat Egyptian Family. There are no vegetarians allowed, and if you happen to be a vegetarian, you can eat lamb, because lamb really isn't meat, now is it?

Peace,

Marian